The Common Core famously emphasizes evidence-based reading and writing. For Common Core assignments and exams, students only get full credit if they answer questions using evidence from the passage under consideration. Why?

Put Google to work. Type in the search word "best" plus the spa service and your town. Yelp, Insider, Bing, City Search or some other social media review site should pop up with information on a variety of therapists and spa professionals.

As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan put it, "I am increasingly worried that our teachers, our administrators don't reflect the great diversity of our nation's students, and that is a real problem."

Coding is, indeed, everywhere today. And while not all of our students will be coders or engineers, they all need to acquire a level of coding literacy that will enable them to understand the power of coding in any career direction they choose.

In the 22 months that I have been out of the closet, education has been my favorite word. Two years ago I sat in a room with my team following Jason Collins' announcement that he was gay. I asked them how they would feel about a gay teammate.

As impressed as we may be when reading Shakespeare, we shouldn't think that we've plumbed the depths of his meaning. As we mature, our understanding of his plays will deepen, as time and heartache teach us more about life than we may care to discover.

There are several ways of reading. We can read to escape or to be entertained; to be confirmed in our own point of view or be challenged by another; to be inspired or attack; to evaluate critically or challenge; to judge, condemn, or simply to understand. It is this last way of reading - of wanting to understand the human heart in its many permutations in Shakespeare that interests us here.

Children are capable of more than many want to give them credit for. The STEAM movement is popularizing this idea, and giving schools ways to think about language, time and space to make that idea real.

Harvard's report suggested that, through the guidance of adults, children need to practice caring and helpfulness as well as learn to manage destructive feelings. This can begin by simply teaching them to take a deep breath. The multiplication table can wait.

According to a 2014 paper by the Australian psychology professor Arthur E. Poropat, research has shown that "conscientiousness" and "openness" (i.e. creativity and curiosity) are more important to student success than intelligence.

As time goes on, perhaps even the CollegeBoard will realize that they should focus more on modern applications than classical ones, and perhaps one day more of the novels high school students read can be similar to contemporary novels and works.

By 2019, schools will be spending nearly 19 billion dollars per year on educational technology. That's a lot of leverage. Educate your administrators and board members and let them know what you need. The forecast is cloudy, and that's a good thing.

The Juneau School District superintendent on Thursday said he will remove four books from the fourth-grade curriculum that members of the public called into question this year, saying the controversial material distorted Native American history.

If you ask almost anyone involved in the conservation movement for the main reason why they fight to save endangered wildlife, they will often mention their children or the need to save threatened species for future generations.

Proponents of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) like to promote the idea that CCSS is "not a curriculum." The CCSS website further states the disjointed idea that local districts somehow retain true freedom over what is taught in the classroom. This is a lie.

Teaching writing has been a challenge for teachers for years. That is one of the reasons why many adults are poor writers; they did not get the training they needed in elementary school and high school.

Their means may not be military, but across this great land, insurgent extremists are at work attacking public institutions and undermining the citizenry's confidence in the same. Our public schools are on the front lines.